What The Teen Choice Awards Nominees Can Teach Us About Today’s Teens

This year’s Teen Choice Awards nominees have recently been announced and they taught me a few things about the youngsters these days. As some of you know, I was once a teenager. Back in my day I did things like read Teen People, then Teen Voguewhen I got classy/when Teen People went under. I remember when everyone who’s kinda messed up now (I’m not saying any names but they rhyme with Triss Frown and Rinsay Rohan), were not that way. I was there! But I probably didn’t vote in the Teen Choice Awards because my parents had dial-up.

A lot has changed since then. Rinsay’s in rehab, the kids are obsessed with something called One Direction, and some movie based on a book (that I may or may not have read the whole series of…) called Twilighthas scored seven Teen Choice Awards nominations. I’ve taken a good look at these nominees and have found that there’s some lessons to be learned in them. Here’s four lessons we can learn about teens from the Teen Choice Awards nominees:

They Don’t Care About The Traditional Awards Season Calendar

The Teen Choice Awards have Argoand The Great Gatsbynominated in the same category, Choice Movie: Drama. What??? You can’t do that! The Great Gatsby does not qualify for this awards season. Or, Argo doesn’t qualify for the next one..? The TCAs are in August. What does this mean for the Golden Globes which set the standard for the rest of awards season but which do not air until next January? Teens don’t give an F. That’s the answer. Their show is in August and they nominate whoever the crap they want! End of story.

They Still Really Like TwilightTwilight has seven nominations due to the fact that it qualifies for Choice Movie: Sci-Fi/Fantasy AND Choice Movie: Romance. Somehow it did not qualify for Choice Movie: Comedy. This means it’s actors also qualify for both Sci-Fi and Romance acting awards. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are both nominated for Choice Movie Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Teens don’t give a damn about supporting actor categories! Throw them both in there together! As long as it’s Twilight, it’s good to go!

They Have Weird Tastes In TV Shows
Or at least whoever comes up with the nomineess thinks teens have weird tastes in TV shows. TV is where I think the massive amount of categories (more on this later) gets out of control. There are SEVEN different types of television shows when it comes to the TCAs: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Action, Animated Show, Reality Show, Reality Competition Show. The drama nominees were fine except that Blake Lively was nominated for Gossip Girland not Leighton Meester which is nuts. Comedy and Fantasy are fine. Animated is okay. Wait, what’s this, the Action category is pretty much all CBS shows because they’re the only channel with “action.” I doubt teens are watching NCIS: Los Angeles. Just sayin’. Also, this reality category seems weird. They like Dance Moms and Tia & Tameraover something like, I dunno, The X Factoror The Voice? Oh, wait, those are just in a completely different section called Reality Competition.

Which leads me to…

Teens Like A LOT of Stuff
There are SO. MANY. FREAKING. CATEGORIES. Music, TV, and Movies all have at least ten awards each. Then there’s other random ones about athletes and “hotties.” This isn’t the Oscars. There aren’t only five exciting awards at the end that convince people they want to sit on their couch for the hours trying to figure out the difference between sound editing and sound mixing. Teens want to stay fully engaged! So that means that there are awards like “Choice Smile” and “Choice Male Hottie” the latter of which will prove if Harry Styles has overtaken Justin Bieber in terms of teen crush appeal. This is a vote though! Liam Hemsworth could be trying to accomplish what Ralph Nadar never could and divide the nominees amongst the parties! (TCAs show idea: Fake CNN type set where the host pretends to be tallying the votes on a giant interactive screen like a young and hip Wolf Blitzer. You’re welcome.) Point is, this show better be really fast moving or it’s going to take approximately eleven hours.

If you are a teen, I suppose it’s time to get voting before the show on August 11th! You have to be between 13 and 19-years-old. I don’t know how they make you prove this, but I promise I didn’t log-on and lie about my age.